


distress in the vicinity of chopped vegetables

by unluckyxse7en



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Blood, Comfort/Angst, Earth C, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood, Panic Attacks, Past Character Death, Post-Sburb, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, characters who can't tell a fruit from a vegetable, purposeful misidentification of fruits as vegetables, what pumpkin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9949157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckyxse7en/pseuds/unluckyxse7en
Summary: Dave decides to try his hand at making food, but a mishap in the kitchen brings back some unpleasant memories.





	

“Hey babe do you want anything to eat?” Dave inquired from the kitchen, poking his head within view through the door. Karkat, seated at the cluttered dining room table, looked up from the movie streaming on his grubtop. He frowned in puzzlement.

“No, why the fuck are you asking?” He inquired, squinting at Dave. Dave blinked, not that it was visible, and shrugged lightly.  
“Well I’m gonna be dicking around in the kitchen for a while, thought I’d ask in case you wanted a patented Strider special,” he replied, stepping into full view so that he didn’t have to crane his neck any longer.  
“You mean like a bowl of apple juice and fruit loops? pass,” Karkat snarked with a roll of his eyes, before something shiny in one of Dave’s hands caught his attention.  
“Wait, what’s with the knife?” the troll pointed at the shiny object, removing his headphones as he did so. Dave’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, the corners of his mouth turning down.  
“For the Strider Special you dick.”  
Karkat’s jaw dropped slightly, eyebrows raised in surprise.  
“Wait, so you’re seriously going to try to make something??”  
“Can you at least try not to look like I just said ‘I’m gonna go decapitate my brother’, please,”  
“No, I’m just…” Karkat bit his lip in thought, trying to be at least a little tactful for once.  
“You’ve never acted like you gave a flying fuck about cooking before. I always just assumed you didn’t know how to,” Karkat admitted, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Dave’s expression returned to its usual neutral state.  
“Oh. Well you’re not wrong,” he deadpanned, receiving a double-take from the previously reluctant troll.  
But before Karkat could say anything, Dave continued;  
“but these goddamn vegetables that mom and Jade gave us can’t just keep sitting there, so I figured someone’s got to do something,” he offered another shrug, already turning away and walking over to the station he’d started setting up for himself on the kitchen counter. Karkat gaped in his direction, half-standing up from the table as concern began to settle in.  
“Dave, are you absolutely certain you—“ Karkat started to protest, but for once was cut off by Dave.  
“Dude, you shouting at me is gonna break my concentration. I grew up around swords, I think I can handle a tiny kitchen knife, “ While Dave hadn’t exactly snapped at him, his tone was a lot sharper than expected, forcing Karkat to bite back the rest of his sentence. Taken aback and frustrated, the troll acquiesced with a surly  
“Fine. Do what you want.” as he dropped back into his seat, whipping his headphones back over his head and unpausing his neglected movie. At least by now it had completely loaded, so streaming wouldn’t be an issue.

Dave listened to the dramatically loud noises of Karkat settling back in, flinching involuntarily at the sound of his forceful sit, until he was sure Karkat was gonna let it go. Sometimes Karkat made shows of giving up an argument only to suddenly get a new fire lit under his ass, like some sort of second breath with severe anger issues. Dave didn’t want to even attempt to prep anything if that was going to be the case. 

He counted to himself under his breath, not that it mattered because Karkat was probably going to assume he was mumbling to himself anyways, and once he was certain the window in which Karkat would come back for round 2 had passed, he returned his attention to the weird plant things he had strewn about haphazardly around the one cutting board he had miraculously found in the cupboards. 

Ok, Karkat might’ve had a point. Dave wasn’t even sure where to start. His eyes drifted, from the ripe red tomatoes to the weirdass eggplant (why were they even called that anyways, he mumbled to himself) to the singular pumpkin that was essentially hogging most of the counter space. His stare briefly landed on a heap of onions and his eyes narrowed with suspicion, remembering his run-in with them back on LOHAC all those years ago, Terezi’s teal text taunting him for being unable to not cry in the face of such a godawful stench. Those were definitely going to wait. In fact, Dave decided he might just avoid those altogether - last thing he needed was to bawl over onions, and risk Karkat taking a snapchat and sending it to Terezi. Those two didn’t seem to be in cahoots as much anymore, but the god wasn’t about to take chances. He’d humiliate himself on his own terms, thank you very much.

Refocusing his attention to the task at hand, Dave folded his arms, pondered his next move - really, all he had to do was slice everything up into manageable bits. He could totally do that with his hella sweet swordsmanship skills. Ok he didn’t actually think they were THAT good, but surely even he could chop them up evenly enough. Didn’t he once slice up a bunch of Bro’s smuppets that time he totally flew off the motherfucking handle. Sliced through them like a hot knife through butter. Yeah, he could do this.

Feeling properly psyched up, Dave’s gaze settled on an unassuming pile of cucumbers. These looked simple enough. He’d start there. Grabbing a cucumber from the stack, he set the cuke on the cutting board, staring at it contemplatively for a minute. Wait, which way was he supposed to place it on the cutting board. He had set it down horizontally compared to him, that was right wasn’t it? He puzzled over which end to start from, before deciding this was good enough. There were a few of these things, if he messed one up he could always slice up another one. Grabbing the cutting knife from its resting place to the left of the cutting board, Dave held one end of the cucumber tentatively while he began slicing it on the other.

To be honest, Dave wasn’t even that nervous about his abilities to slice up vegetables (ok maybe he was a little bit). He just didn’t have a clear plan in mind as to what the actual fuck he was doing, and not having clear plans in mind as to what the fuck he was doing always made him feel a little nervous. And him feeling nervous always led to him questioning everything he was doing, sometimes he even questioned whether he was breathing right. So not knowing what he was going to do with the vegetables once he’d actually sliced and diced them was throwing off his groove a little bit. Like what did you even do with this shit. Did you fry it, or cook it, or what. He vaguely recalled mom —Roxy — telling him how she’d give those chess people pumpkins by the pound and they’d just eat it right then and there. Could you actually eat a whole pumpkin raw like that. 

Realizing his eyes had drifted to the gigantic gourd, its orange form sticking out all impudent like as it was, he returned his gaze back to the cutting board. Huh. Evidently while he’d been spacing out musing about vegetables n shit, he’d actually made some good progress on cutting up the cucumber. He hadn’t moved fast, but a good 3/4ths of it was now divided into nice little slices, the little green circlets falling away from where he had paused the blade. He guesses he must’ve been slicing into it automatically while his mind was elsewhere. And, sizing the sliced bits up with his eye, it even looked like he was making them fairly evenly spaced and junk within the first couple of slices. See, Karkat had nothing to worry about. Dave was obviously a secret wizard at this shit. His mom would totally flip the fuck out at how much of a wizard he’d turned out to be. 

Relaxing a bit, his confidence renewed, Dave set about cutting up the rest of the cucumber. He fell into a rhythm as he went, which was honestly kind of calming. And he’d half-expected that the sound of cold knife through cold vegetable would get on his nerves after a while, but it was actually a rather satisfying sound. He finished the first cucumber, staring blankly at the pieces for a moment as it occurred to him he had no fucking idea what to do with them now. But it was totally ok, he reminded himself, he got this far on the fly, he could handle the rest of it just as smoothly. Using the broad side of the knife, Dave slid the disassembled cucumber pieces into a pile of their own, guiding them off to the side in one fluid motion. A smirk played on his lips as he realized how well he was handling this. He was like one of those dumb TV chefs on those dumb Food channel shows. He had this shit locked down cold.

Grabbing the next cucumber, he set the new victim on the cutting board, this time cutting into it eagerly. As he worked, the rhythm settling in again, he found his mind drifting once more. The musical part of his brain was sampling the sounds of the knife, mixing and matching to create the sickest notes and beats you would ever hear. Heh, beets - he’d have to make a reminder to himself to chop up a beet for the sake of sampling the sound, that’d be so hilarious.

That’s when it happened. A familiar pain shot through his finger, and Dave’s instincts kicked in. Something just attacked, a part of his brain screamed. He leapt halfway across the room away from the counter, nearly slamming into the far wall, every fiber of his being suddenly on the alert. Frantically, his eyes darted around the room, his heart pounding and adrenaline running as his brain tried to parse what just happened. He felt like the very air was buzzing with tension, even the ambient sounds of the household pounded into his head. He stood at the ready, arms held out defensively and ready to block, or parry, or whatever, legs likewise apart and taut, ready to propel him into the air with another evasive leap if need be.

He glimpsed the knife, abandoned on the cutting board in his mad scrabble from the danger, and somewhere in his mind two and two clicked together. Calm down, Dave told himself, he just cut himself like the rank amateur buffoon he was. It wasn’t… Him. He wasn’t here, there was no way he could be. Dave gulped nervously as he tried not to focus on the glint of metal. As he began to un-tense, his muscles relaxing ever so slightly, he became aware of a throbbing pain that had been pulsing lowly all this time, and glanced down at his hand with his eyes alone - he still couldn’t bring himself to relax from his stance.

As his gaze fixed on that steady flow of bright red, Dave’s breath hitched. He must’ve cut deeper than he thought, as his finger was bleeding steadily, dripping on the kitchen tile, forming a small pool below his hand. He gasped for breath, unable to look away. Blood. Oh god, blood. That was an awful lot of blood. 

Dave’s eyes were transfixed on the tiny puddle on the floor - he’d seen a pool of blood like this before. In his mind’s eye, Dave could see it - when the blood pooled beneath His body, when ‘He’ had been decapitated and it spurted from ‘His’ neck, a rushing geyser of crimson. All the times Dave himself had bled, all the times he’d fought and got hurt and died, and found his own dead body laying inert. Unable to stop the red movie reel that was now playing in his head, Dave sunk slowly down into a crouching position, taking his injured finger into a trembling hand as he tried to hide it, stop the bleeding maybe. His breathing shallow, Dave stared a million miles into the distance as his vision began to swim, gripping his hand so tight his knuckles turned paper-white, his whole body trembling.

Karkat wasn’t actually mad at Dave. Just a little confused by the whole thing. Dave’s sudden desire to cook struck Karkat as a bit uncharacteristic, even if the vegetables made a good excuse. He didn’t have a problem with Dave suddenly wanting to cook - he’d been sort of mopey around the house lately, not depressed, but… bored, maybe. So trying something new was a welcome change from that. But the sudden gung-ho nature kind of came out of the blue. Karkat was a bit befuddled by it. 

That said, the one thing that had actually bothered Karkat on any deeper level was how Dave snapped at him like that - well, snapped by Dave standards, anyways. Karkat was just gonna offer some assistance maybe, or even just suggest something different.  
“Dave, are you absolutely certain you don’t want any help or anything.“  
That’s what he was going to say, at the time. He hadn’t meant to challenge Dave’s sudden self-perception of kitchen expertise or anything. He wanted to trust Dave could handle it, but he also didn’t want to finish his movie and enter the kitchen only to find everything in the room burnt to a crisp. 

But as Karkat resumed the movie, he turned the volume on his grubtop down - half-listening to the noises in the kitchen through his headphones. He thought he heard Dave mutter something at one point, but ignored it - if the douche nugget wanted to say something to him, he’d just have say it to his face, the troll reasoned. There was a moment of silence, then things being shuffled around. Another pause. The sounds of a blade cutting through something distinctly plantlike in origin. 

Karkat sighed, and settled into his seat more as he listened to the sounds continue evenly, assuredly. Huh, maybe Dave had it in control after all. Karkat felt a small pang of guilt for a moment, before shaking it off. He’d withhold any such feelings until after seeing the final product - Karkat’s biggest concern was if Dave could assemble something even remotely edible by human or troll standards - heck, he’d even settle for lusus or chesspeople standards. If Dave could do that, then those guilt pangs could get together and throw a fucking pang party in his thinkpan for all Karkat cared. 

The noises continued in the background. Karkat frowned at himself a bit, turning the movie volume back up to its original state. Maybe he needed to take a fucking chill pill for once, and not stick his cartilage nub into everything. Just let Dave do his thing, and not be such a backseat driver. That sounded like a good idea. 

Karkat was getting pretty reinvested in the movie’s plot, despite having seen the romcom a thousand times before, when he heard a clattering noise through his headphones. After a moment of confusion, as to whether it was from the movie or the other room, Karkat took a glance up towards the kitchen door. He couldn’t see Dave from where he was sitting. Concerned, Karkat reached up to remove the headphones, hand hovering over the pause button, ready to drop everything in the event of a house fire or something. 

Silence. 

Karkat’s mouth tightened, debating on whether this warranted him sticking his nub into everything or not. If something was really wrong, Dave would’ve made a noise or something, right? And it’s not like Dave could put himself in any major danger - Godtiers were pretty fucking sturdy. Karkat tapped his nails on the edge of the table nervously, only to stop himself when he realized it was making noise. He needed to listen carefully.

Silence.

Karkat tried not to freak out or let his mind continue its current mile a minute pace - He couldn’t help but think that If he got up now only to find Dave horsing around or some shit, Karkat was almost certain that things would come out of his load gaper that would be unwarranted. He was feeling pretty keyed up now, and Karkat just knew it’d manifest as hurled barbs and insults if it turned out he got this worked up over nothing.

Except now the silence seemed to be unnaturally long, even for Dave just doing his own thing. Deciding this was getting too concerning to ignore, Karkat finally pressed that hovering fingertip to the touchpad, pausing the movie, and removed the headphones from his head, placing them on top of the table off to the side. He then reached up to shut the grubtop screen, listening for some sort of noise - anything.

Silence.

Dread began to sink into Karkat’s heart as he realized something must be terribly wrong. He cursed at himself internally. He should’ve done something instead of waffling around and acting like he was trying to respect Dave’s space, when in reality he was just trying to avoid getting fuck deep in hot water. Why was he such a fuckup???

“Dave??” Karkat called, standing up from his seat, and strutted urgently into the kitchen.

Dave blinked, after what seemed like eons, as Karkat’s voice echoed into his brain. It seemed distant, somehow, like Karkat wasn’t simply one room away. Everything felt like it was wrapped in some sort of stifling haze. Swallowing as he came out of his endlessly looping self-made horror show, Dave glanced upward at the grey form approaching him. 

“DAVE!? Dave, holy fucking shit, are you okay??” it took everything Karkat had to avoid screaming at the sight of Dave curled up in the middle of the kitchen floor, staring into the endless void, breathing irregularly. Seeing Dave’s red eyes dart over to the troll, his sunglasses having slid halfway down his abnormally pale face, Karkat felt a slight relief that he was at least remotely responsive. Trying to keep his voice level, face creased with worry, Karkat stepped closer, kneeling down to Dave’s level.

“Dave, are you okay? Seriously, what the fuck happened?” Karkat reached to grab Dave’s arms, but stopped himself, realizing that might not be the best idea. He could feel an aura of tension radiating from the human’s body, even from this far away. Dave continued to stare at Karkat blankly, still curled up, until something inside him seemed to shift. As Dave’s gaze seemed to once more come back into focus, his expression crumpled, tears welling in his eyes and the eerie pale tint of his skin being replaced with a distressed, blotchy pink. 

Choking out a sob, Dave uncurled, reaching out to latch onto Karkat. Karkat obliged, moving forward into the hug and wrapping his arms around Dave’s shaking frame as Dave gripped onto him. Karkat wanted answers so badly, but seeing - no, feeling - how vulnerable and distressed Dave was, the troll resisted the urge to just assault him with a interrogative torrent. He focused instead on holding Dave as closely and as tightly as he could, shooshing gently as he smoothed his hands over Dave’s back and through Dave’s pale hair. Dave continued to cling to Karkat, sobbing helplessly into his grey sweater. 

They sat like that for a while, Dave weeping and holding on to Karkat for dear life as Karkat tried to soothe and comfort him, tears welling in his own eyes, overwhelmed from Dave’s distress. Eventually, Dave’s sobs slowed into irregular gasps and the occasional swallow, as he tried to bring himself to a stop. Karkat’s shoulder by this point was soaked from Dave’s tears, and as Dave began to pull himself away, reluctantly, an uncomfortable chill settled into Karkat’s skin through the wet layers of fabric. Once they were both untangled, Karkat locked eyes with Dave, his own cheeks now wet. Dave stared back at him through eyes that were entirely red, his face splotchy and messy.

Karkat reached a hand up to Dave’s cheek, smoothing a finger across the tear tracks that stained the vulnerable god’s face.  
“Dave, what the fuck happened?” Karkat inquired, in an unusually quiet tone. Dave gulped, and sniffled, his gaze dropping down for a minute.  
“ I was… I-I was cutting up the… the cucumbers, and I n-nicked myself, and,” He took in a gasp of air, trying not to be overcome with sobs again.  
“It… it hurt, and, and the blood. the-there was. So much blood,” He stopped himself, holding his uninjured hand to his face for a moment as if to stifle the hot lump in his throat. 

Karkat’s face twitched, fresh concern hitting him anew. How much blood had Dave lost??? Dave seemed to have more to say, so Karkat stayed quiet, his eyes moving distractedly over and around Dave as he tried to pinpoint the source of his injury. It seemed like Dave really needed to get this out of his system, but maybe Karkat could tend to his injury without interrupting him… Another, sharp gasp brought Karkat’s attention back to Dave.

“Ka-karkat,” Dave stammered, genuine horror showing on his face now, as he tried to choose his next words.  
“There was. So much. I tried not to think about it all this time, b-but.” An inhale.  
“Br-Bro had. Lost so much of it. A-and, when Dirk had, oh god,” He choked out another sob, eyes stinging with tears again. Pained realization fell over Karkat’s face, as he watched Dave try to rub the tears away. Karkat noted a trickle of blood still on Dave’s hand, and he finally had a clear idea of what must’ve happened.  
As Dave tried to regain his composure, Karkat touched one of his shaking shoulders gently, staring intently at Dave. 

“Dave, listen. I’m not gonna say it’s ok, because we both know that’s bullshit,” Karkat started, clearing his throat as a reminder to keep himself on track.  
“But Dirk’s alive and well. he’s still got that pretentious head on his shoulders. and you’re not there anymore. you’re not in sburb anymore. Jack’s not a threat anymore, not a single fucking asswipe paradox clone of him. and your bro’s resting somewhere on LOHAC. He’s,” Karkat faltered, feeling like he wasn’t helping in any way. But seeing that Dave had stopped sobbing long enough to listen was enough for him to continue.

“I can’t say he’s ok, but. He’s not bleeding anymore. It’s over. and I know it’s not over for you but,” Karkat stalled again, mentally kicking himself as he realized how not helpful that last sentence sounded. But he pushed on, this wasn’t the time to overthink it.  
“But you’re in a different place now. You’re safe. We all are. No one else is going to die like that for a long time.”

Dave’s breathing seemed to have regulated some, listening to his partner try to cheer him up like this. He was still distressed, but looked more calm now, if rather somber. After a moment, he nodded at Karkat, an affirmation that he knew what the awkward troll was trying to say, and that he appreciated it. He gulped back the last vestigial sobs in the back of his throat.  
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, bro,” He intoned, sitting up and leaning forward to embrace Karkat again, not as desperate this time, but thankful, significant. Karkat reciprocated the hug, glad Dave seemed to feel a little better. That thanks, and this hug, had unspoken volumes behind it that only Karkat could hear, it felt like, and he appreciated this feeling, savoring it for a moment.  
“Alright, now how about we take care of that nick?” Karkat suggested with a bit of an uneasy waver to his voice as he faked cheeriness, pulling away. Dave blinked, and nodded, holding his hand up so Karkat could see.  
“Oh, yeah. Good idea,” He mumbled, focusing on Karkat rather than the still trickling injury. Karkat frowned.  
“Holy fuck, no wonder you—“ He stopped himself from completing that sentence. No wonder you freaked out. But given how long it was and the wound was still open and bleeding, it must’ve been fairly deep. With a grimace, Karkat stood up from the cold, hard kitchen floor, muscles protesting from sitting so long. Once he’d stood up successfully, the troll held his hands out to Dave, pulling him up. Even after Dave was standing next to him, though, Karkat didn’t release his good hand.  
“C’mon, the vegetables can wait,” Karkat chuckled a bit, leading Dave towards the door by the hand.  
“At least I cut some cucumbers up pretty nicely,” Dave admitted, trying to lighten the mood. Karkat raised his thick eyebrows at Dave, genuinely impressed.  
“Nice job, Strider. Good to know you’re not a total fuckwit in the kitchen after all,” He elbowed at Dave playfully as he teased, a rare, playful grin baring his nubby teeth. Dave allowed a corner of his own mouth to quirk up, noticing how fucking cute Karkat was. How could one troll do so much for him, and ease his nerves so much? 

“Hell, maybe after this I’ll even try carving up that pumpkin next,” Dave suggested, pointing to the counter now behind them as they stood in front of the door. Karkat’s gaze followed the direction Dave was pointing - taking in the counter with the various piles of smaller vegetables, the cutting board, the abandoned knife and neatly chopped cucumber pieces. Karkat frowned in puzzlement as he studied the counterspace, before returning his attention to Dave.  
“What pumpkin?”

**Author's Note:**

> Out of all the foods listed, only one of them is an actual vegetable. The rest of them are fruits. That said, I felt as though Dave wouldn't realize that, and Karkat definitely wouldn't know the difference between Earth plants, so I let the narrative refer to all of them as vegetables anyways. Especially since the narrative is written in deference to the character's voice and thoughts.
> 
> I struggled with titles, so the title is an indirect reference to a line in homestuck - one between Dave and Terezi, in fact. If you noticed the other Dave/Terezi chatlog reference, then you probably know what the title's referencing.
> 
> This work took much longer to write and workshop, and there may still be bits that are unclear or don't make sense. Critique is welcome so that I may revisit the confusing parts and iron them out some.
> 
> And for the record, fruit loops in apple juice aren't terrible but also aren't anything to write home about.


End file.
